The Red Emissary
Time was relative in the Morphin Grid. Sometimes it felt as if she was only in here for seconds and other times, it felt that a million years had gone by.
She saw everything at once… past, present, future, alternate timelines, parallel worlds… everything from what ifs to what was and what never would be….
Her physical form was reflective of that, constantly shifting from the appearance of one red ranger to another, each a unique ranger from the multiverse. The only thing that distinguished her from the real rangers was her hooded cape.
All the secrets of the multiverse were laid bare to her and the others.
In the absolute power she now had at her fingertips, she forgot herself… That she was once a warrior, a ranger like those she watches over… That for all her omnipotent capabilities, she was at heart still one of them.
She had embraced her role as the Red Emissary but had forgotten that she had once been Rhian.
That she was not infallible.
She and her allies had been unable to stop Drakkon from stealing the Heart of one of their own…
An act that had doomed the multiverse, even if momentarily.
The multiverse was wiped away, replaced by a single dimension by Drakkon, where he was the only one with power… the only ranger… the only hero.
Like them, hubris was his downfall.
The heroes he had defeated and brainwashed revolted, led by the phantom of Tommy Oliver.
Reality was restored and memories of those who had took part in the War against Drakkon were erased.
No one remembered the multiverse getting erased.
No one remembered their failure, except them.
They had failed their purpose, because they had acted as Morphin Masters, not as power rangers… as beings who acted independently instead as a team.
They thought themselves higher than those they protected…
If anything, Drakkon's misdeeds taught them that they were not unbeatable.
The Blue Emissary was the first to involve themselves in the affairs of the mortal universe, to recruit Jason Lee Scott, Trini Kwan, and Zachary Taylor as the new Omega Rangers to help keep the timeline of their native universe on track by stopping those empowered by Grid energies that had leaked when Drakkon shattered the Morphin Grid. In other timelines, they go to the Peace Conference instead of it being a ruse for their interplanetary adventures.
The rise of the Empyreals and the Eltarian War soon proved to them that the timeline was beyond correction. The reality had deviated too much from the prime timeline to be corrected by simple interventions.
The war with the Empyreals had seen her be destroyed along with Blue and Yellow but they had been resurrected upon the Empyreal's defeat.
She might be invulnerable but her fate was tied to the rules of the Grid.
Life and death tied to forces of the shadow.
Suddenly she felt it.
A pain that seared through her physical form, threatening to rip her apart.
Something she hadn't felt since she was mortal.
This wasn't possible. Her form was a physical embodiment of the red spectrum of the Grid.
"What is happening?" She murmured, thrusting her hands to create a crystalline orb, a Nexus Star, which showed her what was happening beyond the Grid and she couldn't believe what she saw…
She saw one of her own champions, the Red Dino Fury ranger, Zayto in the attire of a morphin master, as he hovered above the ruins of Serpenterra on the moon, staring down a gathering of red rangers. He swung his staff and all of them were teleported away.
She tried to reach out to the rangers, only to find her connection severed.
This was unnatural to say the least.
Zayto was never a Morphin Master. He sacrificed his life when he used the Master Blade to take down the Nemesis Beasts in 2022.
The ability to use the staff without being blown apart suggested he was the vessel of some cosmic being, most likely a morphin master, but no master would tamper with the timeline or take a host, unless they were rogues.
There were five. The Praetor was destroyed by the Solar rangers of Universe Z. The others were banished.
The only one she could not sense was the Messiah, a being who coincidentally happened to be a former Red Master himself. It made sense he would be after the red rangers.
In her previous life as Rhian, she had been part of a race that called themselves the Morphin Masters, where in truth, they were only descendants of the Masters, privy to some of their secrets and powers.
The true Morphin Masters were energy beings, residing in the core of the Morphin Grid. In a way, as an Emissary, she was closer to being a Morphin Master than she had been when she had called herself one in her former life.
As an emissary, she was supposed to watch the events unfolding in the mortal world but unlike the Morphin Masters, who had sworn off any interference, the Emissaries could reveal themselves to the physical world and help the power rangers in their never-ending fight against evil in dire circumstances.
This was one of those circumstances.
She took a deep breath, knowing what to do next and dived through the nexus prism, crossing over to the mortal plane.
So, this chapter has multiple references to the comics, both the main issues and the "Power Rangers Universe" limited series.
For those who are not aware of them, just think of them as humanoid beings who have ascended to a higher plane of existence (the Morphin Grid) but are more like angels instead of Gods (Morphin Masters). They shift between ranger forms, kind of like the Power Rangers equivalent of Aka Red from Super Sentai.
Hope you liked this chapter and please review.